


Requiem

by Sokorra



Series: The "Quote" Prompt Series [8]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-05
Updated: 2013-11-05
Packaged: 2017-12-31 14:31:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1032786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sokorra/pseuds/Sokorra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victor wonders if this is Fate's way of punishing him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Requiem

**Author's Note:**

> This fic surprised me. It kind of just jumped up and demanded to be written, no matter how much I wanted to be writing fluff at the moment.

“Only the good die young.” Arnold Rimmer, Red Dwarf

 

If Ruby ever found it uncomfortable to be seen with her much-younger looking husband, she never said a word. There were moments when he could feel that she wasn’t exactly happy with the situation, but he knew it was mostly because it was a sign they wouldn’t always be together.

 

One day she would die, to be rejoined with her mother and Granny, but he would continue on.

 

He would always continue on.  Until the last the magic was used up in his body, he would always live.   He barely aged.  He looked like he was in his mid-forties when he was well into his 90s.  Actually, if you took into account the twenty odd years in the curse, he was over 100.

 

He wondered if Gold had known this when he had healed him.  Gold had liked the idea of Victor owing him one, but he suspected Gold had no intention of making him basically immortal.

 

Especially considering the only immortal being in the town was himself.

 

THey weren’t in storybrooke at the moment.  Ruby was running down, could feel the last days upon her and had asked to spend them in her homeland. Snow and Charming had returned there themselves and offered their guest rooms to house the aging werewolf and her husband.

 

He suspected the old team was in fact getting too old, and soon would disappear. Most of the people in Storybrooke were the decendents of his friends.  

 

Ruby smiled at him over the mug of hot cider in her hands, as if she could tell his thoughts were going towards the morbid side of the spectrum.  She had alot of patience for these moments.  Victor had never been an optmisist, considering himself a realist.  But as time went on, he felt he was growing more and more pestamistic.

 

It wasn’t just that his wife was going to leave him.  He thought, under normal circumstances, he could deal with that.  Figure it was only a decade or two more and he’d be joining her.  He felt he had caused Ruby alot of pain through out the years.  She was never able to have children, though she claimed she didn’t mind.  He still would have liked to have helped her achieve that, to be able to raise a child.

 

Selfishly of course a child would mean there would be a part of Ruby still here when she was gone.  He had always imagined a little girl, with Ruby’s dark hair and curls.  Actually most of her features were from Ruby, but usually had his eyes.  In his mind she wore a miniture copy of her mother’s cloak, following behind her as they walked through the woods in the Enchanted Forest.  Sitting beside Granny as she taught her the proper way to use a crossbow.  

 

But that little girl was never to be.

 

Perhaps he deserved this.  After all, hadn’t he spent so long trying to conquer death?  It looked like in Gold’s actions fate had decided to punish him by giving him near immortal life - while allowing him to not give it to those he loved.

 

“Stop it,” Ruby stated, cutting into his thoughts.  “Look out at the sunset and relax. You are much too tense.”

 

“Sorry,” he replied, smiling softely and taking her hand in his.  He raised it to his mouth, kissing it before lowering it his lap, not letting go. “You’re a better view.”

 

“And stop that too,” She said, blushing slightly.  It made him smile, a bit more geniunely now, that after all these years she still blushed at compliments.

 

“Never.”  She smiled but said nothing in responce, looking out the window at the sunset over the water that surrounded the Charming-Swan-Cassidy-Mills Castle.

 

Snow and Charming had given up their crowns to their eldest daughter, Emma quite a few years back, planning on spending a few years enjoying their family and their life for once.  Emma had co-ruled with Neal, though Neal made sure everyone knew that Emma was the real power, and to be honest she was.  She ruled justly and raised her children to believe the same.  Victor did not doubt that when the crown was handed over to Henry in a few years he would rule wisely.  Being the son of two queens must have left an impression.

 

“Would you like to go walking tomorrow?” he finally asked. “I hear there’s an Apple festival in the village nearby.  Snow and Charming are going.”

 

“Maybe, I don’t know.”  SHe bit her lip and looked at him.  “I love you, you know.”

 

“And I love you.  Always have.”  Her lips turned up slightly at the subtle reference to his years as Whale.  Whale hadn’t loved Ruby like he loved her, but he had been drawn to her non-the-less.

 

“Maybe we should stay in,” she commented.  “Have the castle to ourselves.”

 

“Yes, and the two dozen servants rushing about,” he joked.  “I would like that.” He could tell she was already tiring.  Her strength was leaving her a little day by day.  It hurt to watch her like that, knowing how energetic she was only a few years ago.

 

He wondered if Gold ever regretted his own actions, ever wished for the ability to just...stop.

 

“Let’s go to bed, I want to see this sunrise you’ve told me of so much.”

 

He had seen it, several times on visits, but he knew she would enjoy the phrase.  It was a repeat of something he said their first time through, when they had been new, and he hadn’t yet learned that he had forever to see these things.

 

She nodded, and he led her to the large fourposter bed they shared, curling himself around around her.

 

“Night, love,” she murmered, getting comfortable.”

 

“Goodnight, Red.” he answered, pulling up her old nickname.  She smiled slightly before relaxing into sleep

 

He watched her for awhile, almost afraid to close his eyes.

 

He was afraid of what he could become if he lost her.  As much as his recovery from his depression had been his own work (and some insightful help from Archie), there was an element of how she managed to hold him up above water till he could swim on his own.

 

He was a little afraid of the water when she was gone again.

  
  



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